Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/432

defiance of all the obligations derived from a course of precedents, amounting to the requisite evidence of the national judgment and intention.
"It has been contended that the authority of precedents was in that case invalidated, by the consideration, that they proved only a respect for the stipulated duration of the bank, with a toleration of it, until the law should expire, and by the casting vote given in the senate by the Vice-President, in 1811, against a bill for establishing a National Bank, the vote being expressly given on the ground of unconstitutionality. But if the law itself was unconstitutional, the stipulation was void, and could not be constitutionally fulfilled or tolerated. And as to the negative of the senate, by the casting vote of the presiding officer; it is a fact well understood at the time, that it resulted not from an equality of opinions in that assembly, on the power of congress to establish a bank, but from a junction of those, who admitted the power, but disapproved the plan, with those who denied the power. On a simple question of constitutionality, there was a decided majority in favour of it."
There is also a very cogent argument, on the same side, in Mr. Webster's Speech in the senate, in July, 1832, on the Veto Message of the President.